Pro-Palestine Protest At Sydney Opera House Blocked Following Safety Concerns

The proposed pro-Palestine rally at the Sydney Opera House has been blocked by New South Wales’ top court, with organisers agreeing to change protest routes.

An urgent decision made on Thursday morning saw the Court of Appeal issue a prohibition order for Sunday’s planned rally in the forecourt of the Opera House after it was opposed by NSW Police.

Chief Justice Andrew Bell and Justices Ian Harrison and Stephen Free found that it would be “irresponsible to allow the public assembly to proceed, irrespective of the political significance of the event”, and that there would be a “real risk” that the estimated 40,000 attendants “will be exceeded, particularly having regard to the timing of the march, on approximately the second anniversary of the bombing of Gaza, the iconic nature of the proposed destination”.

After conversations with police, the organisers have now agreed to march from Hyde Park, along George Street, and to Belmore Park near Central Station.

Assistant Commissioner Peter McKenna warned of a “visible police presence” at the Opera House, and said that any who attempt to defy the order could put themselves at risk of punishment for contempt of court.

“I don’t expect people to attend the Opera House but if people are silly enough to, and people want to flout the law … appropriate action will be taken.”

The verdict comes as a departure from comments made by the NSW Supreme Court’s Justice Belinda Rigg, who, in the decision that allowed the historic March for Humanity take place on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, made a distinction between a prohibition order and an explicit ban.

In her view, the prohibition order wouldn’t prevent the assembly from taking place, but that the immunity given to protesters in authorised marches from criminal liability would not apply.

Chief Justice Bell said on Wednesday that the prohibition order “operates to do precisely what the terms of the order suggest, namely to prohibit the holding of the proposed public assembly”.

“It would be highly incongruous for the legislature to empower the court to make an order ‘prohibiting’ the holding of a public assembly, if the terms of that order did not accurately reflect the legal consequence of the order,” the court said.

“The better view is therefore that an order … to prohibit the holding of a public assembly does more than simply deprive participants in a public assembly of the protection [given to protesters in authorised public assemblies].”

Steps taken towards end of conflict

The decision was made only moments before Israel and Hamas reached an agreement over the “first phase” of US President Donald Trump’s Peace Plan, ending the fighting in the Gaza Strip and seeing the release of hostages and prisoners.

October 7 marked the two year anniversary of Israel’s brutal invasion of Gaza, with conservative estimates approximating more than 67,000 Palestinian deaths in what the United Nations last month labelled a genocide.

Greens MP and spokesperson for justice Sue Higginson is also calling on the NSW Government to recognise the genocide in Palestine by lighting of the Sydney Opera House sails with the Palestinian flag.

“The decision by the NSW Supreme Court today, to prohibit a planned rally at the Opera House this Sunday, is a setback for the right to protest in NSW, but it is not a setback to the community movement against Israel’s genocide,” she said.

“Hundreds of thousands of people marched across the Harbour Bridge in the March for Humanity a few months ago, and likely tens of thousands more will be rallying in NSW again this Sunday. Premier Chris Minns should heed the community, and mark this two years of genocide by lighting the Opera House sails this Sunday evening in solidarity with all of those murdered Palestinians.”

The sails were lit with the colours of the Israeli flag in the wake of Hamas’ October 7 attack in 2023, but no such recognition has been made of those in Palestine.